45 comments:

Was just running through this same thought this morning. I tend to ignore what works well and focus on what I need to change. By the time I realize it, I've missed out on awesome blooms - took it for granted. Great post!

Oh, I miss my red hot pokers, too! I haven't planted any yet at my new house, but they were an early and favorite planting at our last house. They were also one of the few established perennials I've had die on me (boo).

Thx, Snowcatcher!I'm replanting tomatoes today. I tend to re-plant tomatoes every June because I refuse to buy into that safe planting date. It's beyond my level of comprehension that I can't plant tomaters before June 15th...

OMG...I've been feeling the same way. Like all of this rain is just mother natures way of saying "ha!" and you thought you were going to enjoy an unemployed summer. "I'll teach you my little pretty!"...

Well, if Mother Nature is out to get you, you're not alone, Kate. We have had rain, rain, and more rain. I tried to pull some weeds yesterday morning, but the ground was so soggy, I pulled part of one of my plants instead. So I gave up. I have pots of plants to plant in a volunteer garden I'm helping with, but each morning I have time to go...it starts raining. Yesterday the weatherman said that the rest of the summer is supposed to be very dry, too dry, in fact.

I'm definitely feeling like a half-empty glass kind of person this morning:)

Hah! Mother Nature is out to get all of us at one time or another, Kate. The opening of my delphinium and peonies always corresponds with the arrival of "The great first of summer wind and rainstorms". You can pretty much guarantee that when these plants are at their peak of beauty, the storm rolls in. I gave up trying to grow red hot pokers a few years ago, as they just won't come through winter for me. I have similar problems with yarrow and Russian sage, but I buy inexpensive pots of both and treat them as annuals. Funnily, the weedy yarrows come through just fine for me. :-)

Hi, Friko;Perhaps I've been spelling it wrong all these years... You're the second gardener, this week, to confess they can't stand this perennial and I can certainly understand why. They don't, exactly, fit quietly into a perennial bed. :D

I enjoy their crazy look. For years, they've served as the 4th of July bottle rockets in my gardens. :)

In the words of Roseanna Roseannadanna "It's always something!" Certain people to whom I was once married called me a pessimist, but I've always thought of myself as a realist. In the sense that I would rather take life as it is, warts and all, and try to improve myself and my surroundings. If you only have rose-colored glasses, and everything is great all the time, how can you change? How do appreciate the beautiful and wonderful things if you don't acknowledge hurt and pain?

I mean, hi! As gardeners, we always see everything wonderful in our gardens, but also things we know aren't there, or things that are there but we don't want. I don't think that makes us pessimists. I, too, love the Red Hot Pokers.; They notoriously don't return here, and I didn't know the rain (which we have had in buckets, in fact the Ark is sailing by as I type) thwarted them. I had some really cool foxtail lilies which didn't come up either and it turns out I didn't have them in well-draining enough soil. Garden is a verb, we learn and move on.

That first photo is so gorgeous it has me packing up my car for immediate relocation out west!

My niece is really working on me hard to visit her yet this year--fortunately another aunt is there now to distract her a bit! If I do venture out that way, we have to figure out how to meet up. What's halfway between you and Colorado Springs--some mountains and a desert?!

My dear, What an array of wonderful comments! Loved them~sorry about your RHP~gorgeous photos and I am sure you'll add them to the garden again. I am now planting those plants that demand (impertinent creatures) perfect drainage in containers! gail

Hi Kate, I was just showing your wonderful blog to Ted and found the pictures of the death of your red hot pokers. Last week I just planted some and was told that if they are tied shut at the bottom of the plant they do better. I guess they do not like moisture in their middle - See you soon